Report from Bandon Dunes
About a dozen other golfers and I took a trip to Bandon Dunes last weekend. My primary motivation for taking the trip was a father/son golf trip with my father who is turning 69 this year.
General Comments about the Resort
In no particular order:
1. The accommodations were very nice. Large comfortable rooms with huge showers and excellent coffee (as you might expect in the Pacific NW).
2. The staff could not have been friendlier. I probably only opened a door on my own ten times. I was always greeted with a “good morning” and a “hello.”
3. There were shuttles that ran throughout the resort 24 hours per day. All you had to do is make a phone call and there would be one at your door within minutes.
4. We ate most of the time at McKee’s pub. The far was mostly Scottish pub food – bangers and mash, shepherd’s pie, meatloaf, etc. The food was very good, filling, and reasonably priced. Despite having you as a captive audience the resort did not gauge on the food. Some of the other folks in the group ate a couple of the nicer restaurants and I heard reports of slow service and cold food, though personally I did not experience any of that.
5. Taking a visit to Bandon is NOT cheap. I haven’t gotten my credit card statement yet but I expect I paid somewhere in the range of $2,000 for three days/two weekend nights, 108 holes of golf with a caddy, misc food sundries, and a couple of take home souvenirs.
On to the meat of the information
General Comments about the golf courses
1. The lies on all the courses are very tight. Coming from the Midwest this was very different for me. I am used to having the ball sitting up a bit in the fairway. At Bandon, the grass in the fairways did not hold the ball up very much. Because of this you had to pick the very cleanly for good shots. For a player like me, where bad swings result in shots hit fat, this took a bit of getting used to. By the end of the trip my swing had gotten very steep to hit the ball first which presented its own set of problems.
2. There was a lot of mounding in the fairways on all the courses, though you rarely ended up with any kind of side hill, uphill, or downhill lie. The ball would tend to roll down into collection areas. That was nice except for the fact that there tended to be a lot of divots in these spots. I had to hit out of divots a number of times.
3. The greens on all the courses were fast and the vast majority of then had significant humps and slopes. I had a hard time reading them for the first few days but that’s why you have a caddy, right?
4. All of the courses were in excellent shape, though, frankly I don’t have the expertise to spot invading grasses or stressed out or unhealthy turf.
5. At the yardages we played Pacific Dunes, Bandon Trails, and Bandon Dunes were “only” 6,142, 6,260, and 6,221. All the courses seemed to play significantly longer than those numbers. I believe that being at sea-level in wet/heavy air resulted in balls going about 1 club less than I am used to here in Cincinnati. Then, of course, there was the factor of the wind. The morning rounds seemed fairly calm with perhaps only a hit of a breeze but the wind was blowing pretty well by the afternoon rounds.
6. The vast majority of the bunkers were deep and had high banks. Though, unless your shot plugged in the side, your ball would roll down to the bottom of the bunker and give you a level. Without exception, the sand in the bunkers was excellent. Not too fluffy, not too firm – just right.
Pacific Dunes
We played 36 holes on this course on Friday and another 18 holes on Sunday morning. This course had a great collection of holes – long and short, short and narrow, long and open, uphill, downhill, etc. I found all of the holes to be excellent with the exception of #16. This is a short dogleg right par four with a large collection area short and right of the green. The landing area for most “safe clubs” 3 wood, 5 wood, etc was very mounded and would likely result in an odd lie or two. The only options off the tee seemed to be driver to get past all of the mounding but would bring a lot of the trouble off the fairway into play or a mid iron to the 150 yard marker which would give you a blind shot to the green.
I enjoyed Pacific very much and it was a great fun to play. A number of the holes, especially #4, 10, and #13 had great views of the ocean. However rather than a golf course, Pacific felt to me more like a group of 18 holes stuck together to form a golf course. It did not feel like there was a flow from one hole to the next possible because of some of the long green to tee walks – namely 3 to 4, 11 to 12, and 15 to 16.
Bandon Trails
The newest of the three courses, we played Trails 36 holes on Saturday. Holes #1 and #2 are more typical of what you might expect to find at Pacific Dunes. Then for holes #3 to #16 you meander through a pine forest until #17 and #18 return you to the linksesque routing. This course felt more familiar to me. In Cincinnati we have very few wide open, exposed courses like Pacific and Bandon. I found the routing through the trees very enjoyable. The trees helped block the view of the other holes and other golfers so there was a real sense that you were on the course all by yourself.
Of the three courses I enjoyed Bandon Trails the least. Visually, the course is spectacular but its’ extremely penal nature lowers the enjoyment of playing it. Countless times during the rounds I played there marginal shots – not BAD shots, mind you, but shots that were just not quite good – ended up in trouble. It seemed that ALL of the collection areas flowed directly into bunkers. Case in point: on hole #4 (
http://www.bandondunesgolf.com/bt_hole8.cfm) I hit a well struck fairway wood off the tee that was just left of center of the fairway. It landed in the fairway and slowly rolled directly into the left hand bunker. I watched many other shots that were marginal end up with severe penalties. It seemed to me that the design theme behind Bandon Trails was to “punish poor shots” rather than “reward good shots.”
As a side note: Hole #16 (
http://www.bandondunesgolf.com/bt_hole16.cfm) reminded me a lot of hole #8 on Crystal Downs (
http://www.rsgcincinnati.com/Crystaldowns/crystaldowns8.html)
Bandon Dunes
We only got to play 18 holes at this course because the Oregon Mid Am tournament was being held at Bandon the weekend we were there. We played 18 holes on Sunday afternoon. By far, I enjoyed this course the most. All of the holes seemed to flow together very well and it was one great golf hole after another. My only complaint was that there was a not a short par three. Personally, I really like the theater and drama of short par threes. #15 is short enough at 131 yards but it was playing directly into a STIFF wind so it was more like 170 yards. IIRC, I hit a five iron on that hole.
I was very disappointed we only got one round here but that just means I’ll have to go back, won’t it?
Overall thoughts
All around, the Bandon Dunes resort is stunning. You have three fantastic, immaculate golf courses at your disposal and a resort staff that bends over backward for you. My trip there was by far the best golf trip I’ve ever taken (See Appendix below) and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I just need to let the bank account recover.
Appendix
As I said above, my primary motivation for taking this trip was my father. He turns 69 this December and still in good health. He plays 18 holes several times per week and carries his bag. We play golf together a lot and I wanted to take him on a trip before it was too late and we had missed the opportunity. Below is something I wrote for another forum and is really at the heart of why this trip was so special for me.
I planned this trip to be with my dad. Together we walked up to the 18th tee box at Bandon Dunes on Sunday afternoon and I realized that this was our last hole. I had flown over 1800 miles and walked over 22 miles during six rounds for this moment. The dusk sun was descending towards the horizon over the Pacific Ocean and gave a golden luster to the mounds and valleys of the fairway. The stiff breeze was at our back, helping us on this long par five. I got pretty emotional as I was walking with my dad and about halfway down the fairway I was crying like a baby. I'm glad that my friend, Mark Koenig, was there to help me along and point me towards my ball. I don't even know what clubs I hit on the hole or what my yardage was. Sasha just handed me the clubs to hit and I did. A few shots later, I stood on the green looking back up the fairway at the sunset and turned to watch my dad roll in a 25 footer for birdie. I would have traveled twice the distance at twice the cost just for that one hole. It was undeniably perfect.